The Port of Seattle and the City of Seattle are discussing a possible land exchange and creation of a new waterfront park in the Smith Cove area, directly across from Queen Anne at Pier 91. Those discussions could result in a relocated city park and playfield with expanded shoreline access.

This is needed due to King County’s efforts to find a home for a 1.8 million-gallon combined sewer overflow tank.

The county is currently looking to identify potential locations for the tank and one potential location is in Smith Cove, just south of the Magnolia Bridge. The Port of Seattle owns the parcel of land across from the cruise ship terminals currently being used for tenant storage. To the west of that parcel is land owned by the city that is used for the Smith Cove play field.

King County proposes to design and build an underground diversion structure and tank to store peak flows during large storm events. A diversion structure at 32nd Avenue West will transfer flows through a gravity sewer line in the right-of-way to an underground storage tank located in the Smith Cove Park/Port of Seattle West Yard area. After storms have passed, in-tank pumps and force main will send flows back to West Point Treatment Plant in Discovery Park. No treatment facilities will be built at the project site.

The public is invited to provide input in a meeting on March 3 from  6:30-8:30 pm at the Magnolia Community Center at the Catherine Blaine Cafeteria (2550 34th Ave West).

1:15pm update: Crews have finished their inspections and found no damage.

Original report: You probably didn’t feel the 3.4 earthquake near Duvall around 5:20 this morning, but that small shaker has crews out inspecting the Magnolia Bridge and the Ballard Bridge. SDOT tells us those bridges are “indicator posts” that show if further inspections need to be done across the city. While some crews may be seen on the deck on the Ballard Bridge this morning, most of the inspection of the Magnolia Bridge will take place under the structure.

The Seattle Department of Transportation has just announced two planned lane closures on the Aurora and Magnolia bridges next week.

From 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Monday, March 8 to Wednesday March 9, crews will close the eastbound and westbound lanes of the Magnolia Bridge one at a time while crews repair expansion joints.

On Wednesday March 10 from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. the southbound, right-hand lane on the Aurora Bridge will be closed while crews complete repairs to the underside of the bridge.

Keep this in mind when traveling over both bridges next week–added traffic is expected. SDOT also reminds commuters that the work is subject to change “in the event crews are called to perform unplanned, emergency work at other locations.”

If you’re going to be visiting neighboring communities Ballard and Magnolia in the next few days, there might be a little extra traffic due to lane closures on both the Ballard and Magnolia bridges. SDOT crews will be repairing the guard rail on the Ballard Bridge, closing down the southbound right lane from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. today, Thursday, January 28, and tomorrow, Friday, January 29, as well as on Monday and Tuesday of next week (February 1st and 2nd). Between 9 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on the same dates, crews will be closing down one lane at a time on the Magnolia Bridge in order to repair the expansion joints. There will be one lane open to traffic in each direction.